


I'll Count the Days Until I Hold You, My Heart Won't Rest Until I Do

by OfRooksandOrchids



Category: Le Silence de La Mer (2004)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2020-12-31 15:21:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21147878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfRooksandOrchids/pseuds/OfRooksandOrchids
Summary: It's been nearly four years since Jeanne bid Werner adieu. The war is over & her grandfather has passed away. Alone now, Jeanne yearns for nothing more than to see Werner again & for them to be given a second chance at love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I absolutely fell in love with Le Silence de la Mer when I first saw it almost a year ago (and I fell hard for Werner!) and the end just wrecked me. I so wanted Jeanne & Werner to have a happy ending. So, I decided to give them a second chance at happiness. 
> 
> The title of this story is from the song I'll Count the Days by Rebecca Ferguson from the Downton Abbey OST. I own nothing. Everything belongs to its respective owners, etc.

The crowd of mourners at her grandfather's funeral was much smaller than Jeanne had expected. The old priest's words, which meant precious little to a community who had experienced the hell of war with no evidence that He gave a damn, barely registered in her mind. A handful of André Larosière's old friends, elderly gentemen all, stood huddled against the chilly mid-December wind. Doubtless they were wondering how long before age caught up to them and they joined their old war comrade in the next world. 

Jeanne was numb to her grandfather's passing, though she had loved him. She wished she could feel guilty about that, but she couldn't. She had lost her father to the Battle of Verdun (no local family had escaped losing a loved one in the Great War) and her mother to a long illness whose passing she had had time to prepare for. She hadn't cried back then. She had developed the ability at a young age, call it a coping mechanism, to bottle up her emotions and keep on keeping on.

Until him. 

Over the past several years, all of her tears and agonizing heartache had been for the one person that had touched her heart and soul like no one before or since. 

Captain Werner von Ebrennac. The handsome, soft-spoken German Wehrmacht officer with the beautiful blue eyes and sweet boyish smile who had turned her entire world upside down with his quiet and gentle presence and deep affection and reverence for France and its culture. Had it really been four years since that freezing cold December night shortly after Christmas when they had parted for the last time, tears spilling from her eyes as she managed a choked "Adieu.," the only word she had ever spoken to him? The emotion in his eyes as he gazed back at her spoke for them both then. He had held her gaze as he slipped back into his car and was driven away, too overcome to say anything himself. 

How could she have been so cruel to such a wonderful man? The kind of man that most women would move Heaven and Hell to be with? She felt so ashamed now and it killed her to think she might have ever caused him a moment's pain or a sleepless night of thinking that she despised him because he was "the enemy.".

Tears hot and stinging sprang to her eyes then. As the priest made the sign of the cross over her grandfather's coffin, Jeanne wept her heart out, just not for the man that those around her thought she was weeping for. What a hypocrite she was! If only they knew!

All of her guilt and all of her grief were for Werner. 

Where was he? Was he even still alive? Had he somehow managed to survive the war and the frigid wasteland that had been the Russian Front? Had he even really wanted to survive? She recalled his total despair, his total disillusionment upon realizing the war's true purpose, as he had spoken of having lost all hope and his volunteering to go to the hell that was the front. Had he forgotten her and gone home to Germany to begin a new life in peacetime with a wife, perhaps the girl in that photograph, and children? Was he, like so many German POWS, still being held in a Soviet gulag? She had only had one letter from him. It had arrived only a few months after his departure in the early months of 1942. No others had ever reached her. That one precious letter had become her prized possession. She kept it in her bedside table drawer and read it every day. She could hear his voice in her head as she read the words she had memorized. 

Never mind that she, Jeanne, had up and joined the French resistance. She still asked herself why she had done something that could easily have gotten her and her grandfather and young Pierre killed. She'd never thought of herself as being particularly patriotic. Was it because she had lost Werner? If she were honest with herself, which she didn't always like to be, she knew exactly why she had done it.

Werner wasn't the only one possibly harboring a death wish. Not that she had ever done anything terribly dangerous or foolhardy that would have resulted in execution had she been caught. She had never killed anyone. While many resistance operatives made it their mission to kill as many Germans as possible, she limited herself to damaging infrastructure or property. She and the small band she ran with were more of an annoyance to their occupiers than anything else. 

What had stopped her bloodying her hands? The excuse she gave had been that she had her grandfather and Pierre to think of. They needed her. Who would look after the old man and the child if she were arrested by the Gestapo? Or worse? 

All a lie, of course.

What had kept Jeanne from killing had been simple. Her time with Werner, those three months that hardly seemed real to her some days, had shown her that there were good, decent, honorable men wearing those uniforms. How could she kill a man if he might be another Werner? A man who served not because he believed in Hitler and supported his hateful regime, but because it was a family tradition common among the Prussian nobility. Or a man who was someone's beloved son, father, brother, husband, lover? A man who was the sole supporter of a family? A man who saw himself as doing his duty to his country same as any Frenchman?

She was an epic failure so far as her cell leader had been concerned. He hadn't been sorry to see the back of her when the war came to an end. Rumor had followed her. Whispers, all of them true, had circulated through the local operatives to the point that she wasn't completely trusted. Wasn't it true that the officer billeted in her house, Werner, had miraculously been spared while his fellows were killed by a car bomb in her front drive? Wasn't it also true that a man she had rejected had put it about that her lack of interest in him and disdain for her other would-be suitors was all down to the scandalous fact that she had a passion for the German captain? Even her grandfather suspected, malicious gossips claimed. The thing was, they were right. Her grandfather had surmised that she had feelings for Werner. After he had left, her grandfather had never confronted her about it and she'd kept her shattered heart to herself, careful never to let him see how she suffered. She would instead go for long walks on the beach and mourn her lost love beside the sea that he had been so enchanted by. Or lose herself in her music. If her grandfather had noticed that she played a particular Bach piece every day, Werner's favorite, he had had the goodness not to say anything about it. 

That she had been accepted into the resistance at all was ludicrous. Desperate times, she'd supposed. She'd been as effective as that damned geranium that the cell members would place on the meeting spot's windowsill to signal the game was afoot. 

She loved her country, but God forgive her, she loved Werner more. She wished more than anything that she could turn back the clock, do it all over again. She wished she had allowed herself to love him openly with all her heart, the consequences be damned. That she had had the courage to embrace the passion that sparked between them. Had spent time together, laughed together, played the piano together. That they had fallen asleep every night wrapped in each other's arms after making love for hours. That she had kissed him awake every morning and before he left for work. Greeted him with an "I missed you today." when he returned in the evening. They could have been so, so happy! If only she had had the courage to love him openly, she was sure she wouldn't have lost him to an unknown fate in the horror that was Russia. 

If only, if only, if only! 

A harsh sob burst from her then, as the priest intoned a final "Amen." It was as if he wasn't just performing a funeral for André Larosière, but a funeral for Jeanne's happiness, as well. 

As the first handful of earth was dropped onto her grandfather's coffin, Jeanne, unable to stand it any longer, turned and ran from the cemetery, oblivious to the surprised glances and concerned murmurs. She ran until she was back home where she bolted the front door behind her and sank to the entryway's floor where she cried until she exhausted herself. It was dark before she dragged herself to her feet and up the stairs. She stopped outside the door to the chamber that had been her parents'. 

The room that Werner had slept in. 

She opened the door and went inside. Too drained to even take off her shoes, she collapsed on the bed that she fooled herself still radiated warmth from her beloved's body. If only he really were there, lying beside her to hold her and murmur words of love and comfort in that soothing voice she missed so dearly, his elegant musician's hands stroking her hair as he promised her that everything would be all right, that he was there for her and he'd help her get through losing her grandfather, that he'd never leave her. That they would be together forever. 

The tears started up again at the thought and it was some time until Jeanne had finally cried herself to sleep clutching the pillow. If God truly existed and was kind, He'd allow her to dream of Werner. 

Dreams were all she had left now that life was a nightmare that she couldn't wake up from.

It seemed that her grandfather had gotten the better deal; to sleep a dreamless sleep for all the rest of eternity.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning found Jeanne utterly exhausted and feeling only the slightest bit less numb than she had during her grandfather's funeral. She had slept like a corpse herself. If she had dreamed, she didn't remember having done. Which, she supposed, was a blessing. She couldn't say which was the harder to bear: dreaming beautiful, happy dreams of Werner, or the horrific and bloodstained nightmares of watching him be shot to death by soldiers of the Soviet Red Army, his life's blood painting the snow crimson as he lay on the icy ground, her name a prayer on his pale lips as he breathed his last. 

A gentle knock on the door broke Jeanne out of her morbid reverie. She pushed herself up from the kitchen table and dragged herself into the foyer. Out of habit, she peeked out from behind the curtain before opening up. She checked her visitors' identities religiously these days. A nasty encounter with Pascal a few months back had made her wary. He was still enraged at her rejection even after all this time, the bastard. Their altercation had gotten the attention of a pair of American GI's who had hauled Pascal away, giving him one hell of a scolding for speaking to a lady the way he had. Peeking out now, though, Jeanne was somewhat heartened by a smiling, familiar face.

It was Solange. Her former pupil and her father had returned to France right after the war had ended. They had managed to escape the fate of so many Jews by taking refuge in England, where friends had taken them in. The young lady was about sixteen now and she had joyfully reunited with Jeanne upon her return and resumed her lessons. Her father had been thrilled to find his home still intact and thanked her for looking after the property. Solange had decided that her bicycle enjoyed a good life with Jeanne and had bade her keep it. 

Jeanne opened the door and let her in. She had forgotten that she had been supposed to go to Solange's for her piano lesson that very morning. She apologized profusely to the girl.

Solange waved her apology off with a sweet smile. "Don't worry about it. You buried your grandfather yesterday. You're allowed to be a little scattered. I came over to check on you. How are you holding up?" 

"Okay, I guess," shrugged Jeanne, lying through her teeth. "I knew he probably wouldn't make it until the holidays. He was suffering so miserably near the end." She sighed as she and Solange entered the kitchen. Jeanne set about making a pot of coffee. "The house seems so much bigger now that it's just me. I told you about Pierre's aunt and uncle coming to get him last month to live with them in Lyon?"

"You did, yeah. It's really great he's back with family. You were fantastic with him, but they can better help him to move on after...." Solange gestured meaninglessly. "After everything."

Jeanne nodded and placed a coffee cup in front of Solange before taking a seat across from her. "He needs to grow up away from the memories." She felt her throat constrict. She knew from her own bitter experience how memories could torment like little else. She willed herself not to lose her composure the way she had the day before. "A new beginning for him," she declared with a forced cheerfulness. "Kids are resilient, or so I've heard." 

If only adults could be so lucky.

"I'm glad me and Papa got out when we did. The bombing raids were scary in London, but we were among the lucky ones. I guess it's because I was still so young, but I don't have that awful of memories, really. Loud noises make me jump and I look up startled whenever I hear an airplane, but I'll get over it all someday."

"No doubt," murmured Jeanne in what she hoped came across as confident reassurance.

Both were silent as they contemplated their coffee, lost in their own thoughts. Solange finished hers off and stood to leave. "I'll see you next week, okay? I can practice that last piece a bit more. I've, uh, been busy."

Jeanne arched an eyebrow. "Oh? And would 'busy' refer to you running around with that young man everyone's noticed you with? The American soldier? What's his name?" She smiled like an older sister teasing a younger sibling. 

Solange blushed. "His name is Aaron. He's only two years older than me. He's been helping me practice my English. I really like him. So does my dad. He's a gentleman, I promise. Always on his best behavior."

Jeanne smiled for the first time in weeks. "I know. I've met him a few times around the village. I approve."

Solange smiled back shyly. "I know that folks would say that I'm too young and all, but I know how he makes me feel when we're together. I'm older than sixteen, maturity-wise, and the war's made Aaron older than his eighteen years, too. If you only knew what things he's seen, poor boy."

"Solange, you don't need to justify your feelings for your beau to me, or to anyone else," Jeanne said as they walked to the front door. "If you really care about him, and if he's serious about you, then please promise me you'll trust in your love and embrace it. If you don't, you might spend the rest of your life asking yourself 'what if?' Don't put yourself, or him, through that. It's too hard." 

It will kill you, she thought, but didn't say.

Solange met Jeanne's gaze. "Are you ever going to tell me what happened to you during the war? I'm not talking about fighting in the resistance. Something else happened. You're not the same person you were before. Something changed you."

Someone, Jeanne corrected silently. "Maybe someday. I'm not ready just now."

Solange hugged her friend. "Take all the time you need. I'm here when you're ready. You're the closest thing I've ever had to a sister." She kissed Jeanne on both cheeks. "See you next week?"

"Count on it. Tell Aaron not to distract you from your music. Tell him your big sister said so." Jeanne grinned.

Solange giggled a promise and Jeanne watched her stroll down the drive toward the street. A young U.S. Army corporal, Aaron himself, greeted her with a bouquet of flowers from old Albert's shop, his face lighting up like a rising sun on a clear day when he saw Solange. It was really sweet.

Jeanne went back inside and cleaned up the coffee things. An image of Werner came unbidden to her mind. She imagined a knock on her door and herself opening it to find her German captain standing there holding a bouquet like Aaron had for Solange, that soft little smile on his lips as he presented it to her, his eyes speaking eloquently for him in that singular way of his. She fantasized that she'd kiss him with a murmured "Merci." on her lips. She'd put the flowers in water before taking her love's hand and leading him upstairs to show, rather than tell him, just how passionately she adored him.

Jeanne closed her eyes and chastised herself for once again being so foolish as to torment herself with thoughts of what could never, would never be. 

She had to face facts. She'd lost Werner for good and all. She had to put him out of her mind, out of her heart, out of her very soul, forever. She would go insane if she didn't. Time to move on. Time to force herself to forget him. Time to try and live again as she had before that fateful November evening when Werner had quietly stepped into her life leaving what she now knew to be an indelible mark.

Easier said than done. But what choice did she have? She knew the answer to that. 

None at all. Because, really, how could she find him now? The only letter that had reached her had had no return address and in the time that Werner had lived with her and her grandfather, he'd never mentioned where in Germany he was from, where he had lived prior to joining the Wehrmacht. He had made it sound as if he had no family, so she didn't even have that basic avenue to pursue, no living relatives that she could make inquiries to regarding his whereabouts.She had no starting point from which to begin a search for him, assuming that he even still lived. The Russian Front had seen staggering casualties among the German troops. Those that survived presumably had been either supremely fortunate and somehow made it home, or were still in captivity. The victorious Soviet Union wasn't keen on releasing prisoners as quickly as the British or the Americans for reasons that she didn't completely understand. She had no idea how to even begin to try and ascertain Werner's fate. 

Which begged the question: did she really want to know? A part of her screamed yes, absolutely, but another part of her whispered that wasn't it better to not know for sure, so that she could still imagine him alive and well somewhere? Imagine he'd survived and was healthy and happy, even if he wasn't here by her side.

Some things just weren't meant to be. 

Jeanne took a deep breath and forced her mind back to the here and now. She had forgotten Solange's lesson earlier, but she had another pupil that would be expecting her that afternoon and several errands to run afterward. She would be busy and occupied which should help to keep her mind off of Werner and her poor grandfather. 

Time to go out and face the real world that had neither the patience nor the sympathy for the broken-hearted. That was the harsh reality.

Time to start moving on. 

Time to forget. 

With that final thought, Jeanne collected her sheet music and put it into her worn leather satchel, grabbed a coat and scarf, and walked out her door, locking it behind her. With the click of the key in the lock, she imagined locking the past out of her life.

Never had a turning lock sounded so final, so forlorn.

Why did life have to be so cruel?


End file.
